Surge in phishing websites targeting Chinese netizens

Phishing, the practice of obtaining personal information, passwords and credit card details from unsuspecting netizens, was up 87.9 percent year-on-year between January and March in China, a leading security software provider reported on Monday.

Qihoo 360's report said it blocked its users from accessing phishing websites about 620 million times in the first three months of the year.

More than 50 percent of these sites were masquerading as foreign lottery websites, it said, adding that fake medical and shopping sites were also prevalent.

Over the same time period, the majority of internet fraud involved mobile phone users and was mainly related to online purchases of financial products, according to the report.

However, as fraud and phishing websites have been on the rise, the problem of Trojan viruses has been on the wane.

Spam calls and texts have also declined in the past three years thanks to the company's security protection, the report said.?

Of the spam texts users did receive, almost 94 percent were advertising promotions, followed by fraud messages, it added.